As used herein, the term ‘dithering’ denotes a process of intentionally adding noise to randomize the quantization error due to bit-depth transformations applied to static or moving images or pictures. Dithering is applied so that when reducing the bid-depth of a signal, the average local values of the quantized output signal have the same bit-depth as the input.
For imaging applications, when N-bit images are converted to P-bit images (where P is lower than N), the visual system acts as the averaging process. For example, dithering may be used when going from a multi-bit-depth signal (e.g., N=8) to a binary signal (e.g., P=2). This case is also referred to as halftoning. In display technology, dithering may be applied to lower the bit-depth of the input (e.g. 10 bits) to match the lesser bit-depth of a target display (e.g., 8 bits).
As used herein, the term ‘dynamic range’ (DR) may relate to a capability of the human visual system (HVS) to perceive a range of intensity (e.g., luminance, luma) in an image, e.g., from darkest darks to brightest brights. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘scene-referred’ intensity. DR may also relate to the ability of a display device to adequately or approximately render an intensity range of a particular breadth. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘display-referred’ intensity. Unless a particular sense is explicitly specified to have particular significance at any point in the description herein, it should be inferred that the term may be used in either sense, e.g. interchangeably.
As used herein, the term high dynamic range (HDR) relates to a DR breadth that spans the some 14-15 orders of magnitude of the HVS. For example, well adapted humans with essentially normal vision (e.g., in one or more of a statistical, biometric or ophthalmological sense) have an intensity range that spans about 15 orders of magnitude. Adapted humans may perceive dim light sources of a few photons. Yet, these same humans may perceive the near painfully brilliant intensity of the noonday sun in desert, sea or snow (or even glance into the sun, however briefly to prevent damage). This span though is available to ‘adapted’ humans, e.g., those whose HVS has a time period in which to reset and adjust.
In contrast, the DR over which a human may simultaneously perceive an extensive breadth in intensity range may be somewhat truncated, in relation to HDR. As used herein, the term ‘visual dynamic range’ (VDR) or ‘enhanced dynamic range’ (EDR) may relate to the DR that is simultaneously perceivable by a HVS. As used herein, VDR may relate to a DR that spans 5-6 orders of magnitude, however it is not intended to be limited to any span of dynamic range, and VDR (or EDR) may be narrower or equal to HDR.
Until fairly recently, displays have had a significantly narrower DR than HDR or VDR. Television (TV) and computer monitor apparatus that use typical cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD) with constant fluorescent white back lighting or plasma screen technology may be constrained in their DR rendering capability to approximately three orders of magnitude. Such conventional displays thus typify a low dynamic range (LDR) or standard dynamic range (SDR), in relation to VDR and HDR. Digital cinema systems exhibit some of the same limitations as other display devices. In the present application, “visual dynamic range (VDR)” is intended to indicate any extended dynamic range, which is wider than LDR or SDR, and may be narrower or equal to HDR.
In practice, images comprise one or more color components (e.g., luma Y and chroma Cb and Cr or R, G, and B) wherein each color component is represented by a precision of N-bits per pixel (e.g., N=8). Although luminance dynamic range and bit depth are not equivalent entities, they are often related. Images where N≦8 (e.g., color 24-bit JPEG images) are considered images of standard dynamic range, while images where N>8 may be considered images having high dynamic range capability. VDR and HDR images may also be stored and distributed using high-precision (e.g., 16-bit) floating-point formats, such as the OpenEXR file format developed by Industrial Light and Magic.
Despite recent advances in display processing, hardware limitations may still restrict the bit depth precision of the processing pipeline of VDR images and video. As appreciated by the inventors here, it is desirable to develop improved techniques for dithering images.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.